Well, that certainly didn't take long.
Facebook just announced a new version of the Atlas ad platform it acquired from Microsoft last year, and Adblock Plus has already figured out a work-around to its most contentious new feature.
Facebook's freshly relaunched and 're-written from the ground up' ad platform enables it to track activity across a user’s devices, and connect online campaigns to offline purchases.
Basically, it implies that Facebook ads would be following you around. But not if Eyeo, the company behind Adblock Plus, has a choice in the matter, though.
Ben Williams, the Cologne tech company's head of communication, has just published a blog post denouncing Facebook's new ad platform. He writes:
"Facebook claims that your identity will remain anonymous when it is sold to advertisers.
Meaning what, exactly? That they will sell my “metadata” but not me when they use my Facebook profile to target ads to me outside Facebook? How much of me do they consider me?"
And they already claim to have a solution, of course. In short, Williams says Adblock Plus is now able to block the ads the new Atlas tracking would serve across the Web, in order to 'protect its users'.
How does it work?
"Our approach is simple: Facebook can’t track you if you’re using Adblock Plus on the device in question. And even if you somehow get tracked once on a single device you’ll be able to block the ads that Atlas would serve you on your next device with Adblock Plus.
In short, you can break the ad circle that Facebook-Atlas is trying to connect around you."
More than 60 million users currently have the Adblock Plus browser extension installed, and many more (another 90 million by some counts) have other installed other software to block ads.
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments